Ps. lxxiii. 28. It is good for me to draw near to God.
THE dispensations of Providence are often so dark and inscrutable, that the proud man is ready to question the wisdom of them, and almost to doubt whether they are the result of design or chance. The prosperity of the wicked is more particularly a stumbling-block to those who limit their views to the
things of this life. But a more enlarged acquaintance with God and his ways will silence every cavil, and oblige us to confess, that however " clouds and dark- ness may be round about him, righteousness and judgment are the basis of his throne." The Psalmist himself for a season was unable to account for the prosperous state of the ungodly, while the righteous were regarded by them as objects of contempt and abhorrence. His reasonings upon the subject could not satisfy his mind : but at last he " went into the sanctuary of God," and there learned to estimate the ways of God by a very different standard, and to think those the most happy who were happy for eternity. In the review of this experience, he was led to acknowledge the more than brutish stupidity of his soula, and the benefit which he had received from drawing near to God : " It is good for me," says he," " to draw near to God."
In discoursing on these words, we shall shew, I. What is meant by drawing near to God—
We must not suppose that any bodily motion is necessary in order to the drawing nigh to God ; since he filleth all space, and is " never far from any one of usb." The expression in the text imports a draw- ing nigh to him,
1. With the mind —
[Though " God is a Spirit, " and therefore not to be apprehended with bodily eyes, yet man is able, by the exercise of faith, to place him as it were before the eyes of his mind, and thereby to " see Him that is invisible c." Nothing can be more absurd or delusive, than to draw a picture of him, as it were, in our imagination, and to present him before us in a way of vision. Whatever visions were granted to men in former times, it is rather a sense and consciousness of his presence, than a sight of him as present, which we are to expect. We must not look for such a luminous appearance as Moses saw ; but it is our privilege to say with David, " I have set the Lord always before med." When we set God before us, we also set ourselves before him : we summon ourselves into his pre- sence ; and endeavour to impress our minds with the con- viction that he discerns our inmost thoughts. In this way
a ver. 22. b Acts xvii. 27. c Heb. xi. 27. d Ps. xvi. 8.
c°